Death in Gaza

The movie itself is very poignant. The children are being trained to be resistance fighters, but in view of the destruction of lives and homes they must face every day, it os perfectly understandable? It made me ask myself how I would feel if Russians or Canadians were bulldozing my neighborhood and shooting at my family. This movie provides an in depth look at one side of a contriversy. If the producer had not been shot by Israeli troops, we probably would have had an equally poignant telling of the plight of Israeli children as well. The refusal of Israel or its military to be accountable for the filmed murder of the producer is stunning and unbelievable. I feel for his wife and child, as "Death in Gaza" showed him to be a good man. I recommend this film, but warn that it is intense on an emotional level at times.

I saw Death in Gaza as a wonderful documentary about the horror of life in and around the Israel border. Too many times we hear of bombings and death in Israel without seeing the other side of the story. This film gives a voice to those who do not have the cameras or television stations to broadcast their side. Because of the extreme poverty of the these people they simply did not have the resources to film what everyday life is like living with the intimidation of a much wealthier country who has the largest world powers as their allies. One has to admire the makers of this documentary for being willing to get this story and for ultimately for paying the highest price and becoming themselves yet another statistic.

James Miller was a documentary cameraman who died making his final film – a look at the day-to-day reality of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. He died as part of that conflict when he was shot in the neck. This film charts his final work as he interviews the children who are the next generation of the conflict who have been born into the situation knowing nothing else.

Being from Northern Ireland I will admit that I have grown up with my own complex conflict of terrorists and murders to come to terms with and thus have never made time to find out a great deal of the "truth" about the situation in the Middle East. As a result I have no bias towards one side or the other which I think is a good thing since many of the reviews on this site seem to be more about people's views of the situation rather than being reviews of the actual film. With such an emotive subject perhaps this can be excused but when I watched it I tried to keep an open mind to all sides of the argument and try and review the film as it was made rather than just ranting at people.

Watching it myself I must admit to being a bit surprised by those who say it is biased towards justifying the Palestine actions or that it portrays Israel as a vicious army only attacking children for no real reason. Personally I didn't think it did either of these things and actually shows the opposite regularly. It manages to avoid issues of right/wrong by looking at the children, not the history of the conflict. True it might have been better if he had done this with children on both sides but simply following one side doesn't mean the film is biased towards them – indeed seeing the next generation of Palestinians talking about wanting to be martyred while attacking Israel could hardly be seen as presenting them in a good light. The main thrust of the film is to show how hopeless the situation is – both sides are right and both sides are wrong and whole generations of people seem to just want to fight and die. It is utterly depressing and the film does pretty well in bringing this out by looking how, outside of the political agenda the problem is ongoing. In Northern Ireland the will of the people is mostly for peace and negotiation but here you don't see that.

Overall this is an engagingly depressing documentary. The way it turns at the end to be more about Miller than the conflict undermines it a little bit but it is easy to forgive given what happened and considering that the film does stand as a memorial to the director. Well worth seeing although I can understand why many viewers have found it impossible to get past their politics and just watch the film.

I am an American of Palestinian descent, and this film broke my heart. Unfortunately, the filmmaker only got to tell one side of the story before he died. The way some of the Palestinian adults (note not ALL of them -- for example, one boy's mother is shown begging him to stop his martyr talk) radicalize their children is shocking and upsetting. However, had Miller lived, he probably would have show some Israeli adults doing the same.

No matter which side you're on, this is a very sad and thought-provoking documentary. Anyone who's interested in the conflict in the Middle East should definitely watch it and see the level of desperation that the people there have reached.

Some of the comments on this board regarding Death In Gaza are truly astounding. I'm refering to the users who describe the Palestinians in this film as "barbaric" and Israel as a "peaceful nation." We must have seen different documentaries because I didn't see it this way at all. I saw local Palestinian militia defending themselves against illegal occupiers and I saw Palestinian children throwing rocks at huge Isreali tanks (paid for by US dollars). The user who describes Israel as a "peaceful nation" must believe those tanks shoot flowers and stuffed teddy bears. If Israel is so peaceful why do they need a multi billion dollar army? To defend themselves against kids with rocks and an occasional suicide bomber? Wake up. This was an amazing film and kudos to HBO for airing it, although judging by a number of the comments on this board, the point was completely lost on many people.